5 fresh fonts for your next online project

From New York City to Rome, independent art, film and music intermingle each year, simmering in each other's juices. You can't have music without art, or film without music. Music without some sort of visual representation just isn't marketable to the masses. A fashion show without a background accompaniment of sound would be pompous (unless we're talking hyper-avante garde couture like Junya Watanabe or Duckie Brown, in which a silent fashion show might be absurdly fitting). A movie without a relevant wardrobe and soundtrack would never make it to box offices. This deep connection between film, art, fashion and music is what shapes cultural movements. It creates mass trends and styles, and influences every aspect of our culture down to the most basic visual form of art: the font.

Fonts, Fonts, Everywhere

Have you ever stopped to capture a glimpse of the typefaces of words around you at the shopping mall, at your workplace or at a concert? I can guarantee you that you will find a multitude of text in your visual scope, dressed up in all sorts of silly fonts. From the water bottle on your desk to the concert flyer slipped under your windshield wiper, you are assaulted almost every moment with a barrage of fonts, styles and themes that represent artistic marketing trends of the moment. With several recommendations from ZoomZum, here are five fresh fonts of the moment, that you can use to spice up your website or holiday card creation:

Yummy Nubs

What can be said about Yummy Nubs? It's a big, bouncy, oozing, all-uppercase font, drawing inspiration from mutant superheroes and electro DJ's. In solid black, it almost has a blotched comic book look. Hints of 'Nubs' styling can be seen in the gnarly, pink spray foam stuff featured on last year's “Battles” album cover. It's also draws from the Dim Mak brand and label that superstar DJ Steve Aoki has refined, which has spawned the success of artists like Datsik and Bloody Beetroots. Guaranteed to be big in 2013 and probably 2313, Yummy Nubs is a splattered hit of a font!

New Century Schoolbook

Using a typeface that refers back to a pre-50s era is unique in itself. It captures the romance of a classic period in a time where style and elegance seemed to be at their peak. The Century font family takes us back as far as 1919, when Linn Boyd Benton previously cut the font for “Century” Magazine, working alongside T. L. De Vinne. Several years later, the Schoolbook typeface was crafted and used for generations to teach children to read. Using New Century Schoolbook in 2012 can be provocative and fun, raising the question, “Where is technology taking our education system?” while at the same time, drawing images of 20's and 30's nostalgia.

Otama e.p

Otama e.p: in uppercase is "The Devil Wears Prada," "Bonfire of The Vanities," and Vogue Magazine thrown in a blender with a skoach of '90s grunge. Otama e.p screams old Southern money without the tight-necked golf culture that comes with it. If a typeface ever had classic swagger, it would be Otama e.p, even in its lowercase form. Look for this font to be worn and repped by everyone from Kardashian character, Bruce Jenner, to up-and-coming rapper, A$AP Rocky. A great font option sure to jazz up any greeting card or invitation!

Insider Characteristix

This is a complex one. At first glimpse, Insider Characteristix looks simple and straightforward, but when you use the non-regular sets, you start to see an amalgamation of various ligatures and ordinals. With its full character set, you realize just how deep this bad boy goes. Insider's Stencil set is like new world order graffiti. It's relaxed and urban, but carries some sort of otherworldly, corporate identity. Although 'Insider' maintains a mysterious cryptic trait, its global vibe gives off the sense that it is a universally understood font. In reality, Insider Characteristix is part of the Insider family of OpenType Pro fonts coming from Germany, with nine different styles, according to Characters Font Family. In this image, the styles are used in combination. For a truly unique and surreal birthday card, mix and match the nine styles of 'Insider' and expect a memorable response.

Century Gothic

Century Gothic is crisp, sharp-edged and timeless. Century Gothic was created in 1991, but is based on a 20th century design of Sans-serif faces popular in the '20s and '30s. The font is also commonly used for small quantities of text, headlines and display work, according to Typedia. As the default font of the 2012 Summer Olympic Games, the selected typeface for the TV series House, and the font style used by a multitude of music artists from Weezer to Crystal Castles. Although it surely has a distinct tone, Century Gothic can be a light and somewhat neutral font to use on a Christmas card, Chanukah greeting, or even a New Year's Eve party initiation.

Inside each and every one of us, there is a potential graphic designer, drawing inspiration from our surroundings. We may not all work for independent art firms or graphic design studios, but this knowledge could come in handy when piecing together a web project or designing cards for our friends and family. With the visual stimuli you calculate on a daily basis, there should never be an excuse to have “font block." Use some of the exciting typeface recommendations above for a fresh, trend-worthy approach to font usage, and make your project dazzle.